


burn the ashes

by ceruleancats



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Desolation!Tim, Gen, at least kind of a resolution, did i steal the title from a fall out boy song because i'm an emo bitch?, he doesn't need it tho he's in jail, maybe so, rip elias's flat, tw for brief implied suicidal ideation, with a sort of happy ending?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22947901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceruleancats/pseuds/ceruleancats
Summary: Tim blows up the wax museum. He dies. And then he wakes up in the rubble.
Comments: 25
Kudos: 116





	burn the ashes

**Author's Note:**

> so this is definitely different from my usual style -- i've never written angst before, so hopefully it turns out okay, but i was really feeling it last night for some reason (psa: half of this was written at about 2am, so please lmk if it's at all coherent). i love tim. 
> 
> and that's all i have, so enjoy!

The first thing Tim does after waking up the still-smoldering rubble of the Great Yarmouth House of Wax Museum is laugh. Because what the fuck else are you supposed to do when you sacrifice yourself and your coworkers to blow up an army of evil mannequin clowns in order to save the world and then not end up dead. Or injured in any way, apparently, because although every nerve ending is singing with pain, when he checks himself over, his clothes seem to have been burnt away almost entirely but his skin is completely smooth and unblemished. A little too smooth and unblemished, actually. He pushes the searing pain to the back of his mind and checks his forearms for worm scars. Nothing.

He’s beginning to have a bad feeling about this. He presses a finger against his arm experimentally and watches in sick fascination as it sinks deep into his flesh—no, his wax. Because of course that’s what’s happened. He came here to devastate the Stranger, to destroy its ritual, make it feel the pain of having the thing most precious to it in the universe ripped away. To get revenge. To inflict loss. To inflict pain. And what’s more Desolation than that? 

Another hysterical laugh bubbles up his throat and he yanks his finger out like he’s been burnt. It feels like he has. Everything feels like it’s burning, including his eyes, but he can’t cry because there’s literally no water left in his body. He lies back in the rubble and breathes in the acrid smoke that ignites his lungs with even more pain and screams and screams until the fires die and the crackling, creaking ruins fall silent. His voice does not go hoarse.

—

Tim doesn’t go back to the Institute. He’s burnt (ha) all his bridges there. And now that he’s been claimed by the Lightless Flame, he never has to set foot in that godforsaken place again — he can feel an emptiness somewhere in his brain where the constant compulsion to _come back_ would creep over him like mold every time he tried to stay home or fly across the world to escape the Eye’s unbroken gaze.

He returns to his flat first. He makes some tea out of habit to try to calm himself down, and he’s brought the cup all the way to his lips before he realizes hot tea and wax insides probably don’t mix well. He puts the tea back down on the table and stares at it and doesn’t think about everyone else who went into the museum with him and definitely didn’t wake up completely uninjured, or Melanie and Martin alone at the Institute, or the fire that feels like it’s coursing through every single one of his non-existent veins. When he finally gets up, the wood of the dining table is scorched black where his arms were resting. Whatever. Not like he needs it to eat at anymore. 

That night, he sleeps in the bathtub, because his sheets curl and smoke dangerously when he tries to lie in bed. The cool ceramic is freezing against his skin. It doesn’t take away the burning, but it helps. He stares at the inside of his eyelids for a long time, thinking about the Institute, and Danny. When sleep finally comes, he sinks into it in relief and tries not to hope he won’t wake up.

—

Jude Perry is a bitch. This is a conclusion Tim comes to within three seconds of meeting her, and it does not change the longer he interacts with her. Although, to be fair, he probably didn’t help their acquaintanceship by starting off the meeting with the greeting, “Hello, let me preface this by saying that I’m not going to join your evil fear cult.”

She narrows her eyes at him, maybe trying to figure out if he really has the balls to talk to her like that. Well, he does. 

“What exactly do you want from me, then, Tim Stoker?” she says coolly (ironically), leaning back in the cafe chair. “And why should I help you at all?”

“Well, I’m apparently now an avatar of your god. And my clothes keep catching on fire,” he says, looking pointedly down at where the sleeve of his shirt has already started to blacken. “Any way you could find it in your icy—sorry, fiery—heart to teach me how to control this?”

She regards him for a second without saying anything. Then she leans forward, smiles. “No.” 

“But Jon told me you were so helpful,” Tim says sarcastically. If she’s not going to help him out, he’s going to be as annoying as possible for as long as she’s here. 

Jude practically snarls at that, but quickly smooths her face back into impassivity. “Ah yes, your Archivist. How’s his hand?” she says, playing at bland disinterest. “Or is he even still alive after what happened with the Stranger?”

Tim shapes his mouth into what he hopes resembles a carefree grin. “Don’t know, don’t care. I’m just here for me. To figure out how not to burn through my entire wardrobe and my flat.”

There’s another beat of silence. Jude tilts her head, contemplatively. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll help you.”

Knowing what he does about Jon’s encounter with her, and given the speed of this turnaround, this is probably some kind of trick, but honestly, Tim doesn’t care. Controlling his new “powers” is the first step on his way to — well, he hasn’t really planned that far in advance. 

He shakes Jude’s proffered hand and doesn’t flinch at the heat it radiates. He can hardly feel it, actually. The image of a scarred hand pushing a detonator into his palm flashes briefly in his mind, but he lets it and Jude’s hand go. 

—

_Feed your god, or it’ll feed on you_ , Jude had said. Tim hadn’t wanted to, he doesn’t want to, but—the burn under his skin won’t abate, just gets hotter and hotter until he feels like he’s boiling from the inside out. He keeps looking down at his hands, expecting them to be melting, or bubbling, or _something_ , but somehow the heat doesn’t seem to reach his skin. He’s always had a high pain tolerance, but this is so much more than just pain (the fact that burns are supposed to be the most agonizing injuries passes through his mind). 

He’s curled up in his bathtub again, filled to the brim with cold ice water that quickly becomes lukewarm, trying to think through the pain, pain, pain signals his brain is screaming at him. And suddenly it’s just too much. His vision tunnels to black and consciousness falls away in the space of an eyeblink.

When he finally comes back to awareness, he’s standing. Not just standing, but standing in the middle of the foyer of the nicest flat he’s ever been in. He looks back at the door: it hangs half open, the lock melted to slag and dripping golden starbursts onto the sleek wooden floor. His head throbs with heat in time with—well, he doesn’t exactly have a heartbeat anymore. 

Where the hell is he? 

He spots a neat stack of mail on the black granite countertop and goes to take a closer look. The one on top is addressed to a...no fucking way. _Elias Bouchard_ , in stark black letters, stares up at him from the front of the envelope. 

The pain in his head flares white-hot. Feed his god, right? Well, he’ll gladly let his piece of shit eldritch bitch of a former boss feel something like loss. 

For the second time in as many months, Tim walks out of the smoking ruins of a building unscathed. 

—

So Jon isn’t dead. Jude tells him that one day out of the blue, offhandedly, during one of their little “coffee chats,” as Tim has taken to calling them (since it seems to annoy her). Apparently she’s heard it from Annabelle Cane — do all avatars know each other or something? Is there some kind of Facebook group he should be joining? Regardless. He doesn’t really hear the rest of whatever lesson she’s trying to impart onto him about how best to destroy a person’s pillars of support until their life crumbles out from underneath them, because he can’t stop thinking about Jon lying silent and still in a hospital bed. Jon grabbing at his fists desperately, asking Tim _what do you see?_

He goes to the hospital. They ask him his relationship to the patient, and he hesitates just a bit too long before saying “friend.” 

Jon looks very peaceful everywhere but his eyes. The rest of his body is still as a corpse, no breath, no heartbeat, but his eyes twitch and his eyelids flicker like he’s in the middle of a nightmare. Maybe he is. 

Tim sits in the chair beside his bed for a while, watching the watcher. He thinks (hopes) that Jon would appreciate the irony. 

“Hey, boss,” he says, finally. “So I know I was supposed to go out in a blaze of self-sacrificial glory, but things didn’t exactly go as planned. It looks like...well, it looks like we’re both avatars now. Common ground. That’s always nice.” 

Tim looks at Jon’s face, pitted with worm scars, and then down at his own hands, where his scars used to be, before.

“Yeah. Well, I just came here to see you. Felt like I should tell you… I know what I said before the detonator, and I still don’t know if I forgive you. But I know what it feels like, now. The—hunger. Being a monster. And I think I can understand.”

He pauses. Jon doesn’t respond, obviously. His eyes quiver beneath their lids. Tim sighs.

“I blew up Elias’s flat the other day. Too bad he wasn’t there. Just thought you’d want to know. I guess being an avatar isn’t all bad, when there are dickheads like him in the world that deserve destruction.” 

Silence. 

“Well, I should probably go. I’m still not great at controlling the ol’ burning-things-to-death powers, even with Jude’s help. She says hi, by the way. But, Jon, I...hope you wake up. I’m never going back into the Institute, but, hey, maybe you’ll get a statement about me. Or something. I promise I’ll stick to rich assholes.”

Tim tries for a smile and finds that it almost fits. He pushes himself up from the chair, puts a hand on the doorknob. Turns back for one more glance at the bed.

“Bye, Jon. I’ll see you around.”


End file.
